• In a week-long party conference comprised mainly of soporific work reports and rhetoric-heavy speechifying, unbridled emotion has emerged as a counterintuitive motif. While the congress's 2,268 party delegates are technically responsible for workshopping their leaders' reports, many have opted to err on the side of sycophancy rather than genuine criticism. Migrant worker delegate Ju Xiaolin shed tears while reading an original poem called Getting New Hope, a paean to president Hu Jintao's 64-page Thursday morning political report. "I found it! I found it! I found the new hope in my heart," he said, eyes glistening with tears. "I found new hope at noon on November 8, at the podium at the Great Hall of the People, when I heard Chairman Hu Jintao's thunderous voice."

A broad range of delegates were ineffably moved by Hu's speech, which contained heartrending lines such as "the scientific outlook on development is the theoretical guidance the party must adhere to for a long time".

"I shed tears five times when listening to President Hu's report," said Ningxia delegate Li Jian.

"I will remember that day all my life," proclaimed delegate Shan Dan from Inner Mongolia.

• The congress has welcomed foreign reporters with open arms, if domestic media coverage is any indication. China Central Television has interviewed an Australian reporter, Angela Yu, who achieved minor internet fame after asking the National Development and Reform Commission a minute-long question about Sino-Australian relations in Chinese. "You speak very good Chinese," the commission's chairman replied warmly. But there's a twist: according to the Wall Street Journal, Yu's company, CAMG Media Group, has Chinese government ties.

• Another motif is primary school-aged journalists, who have raised a few unexpectedly hard-hitting questions for party delegates. When an 11-year-old girl confronted a group of high-level officials about food safety scandals on Friday, they "suddenly straightened in their seats", according to the South China Morning Post. On Monday, another 11-year-old, Jiang Jiahe, laid a hard truth on officials from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. "Right now homes are too expensive," he said. "A lot of my classmates' parents spent all of their money on homes and borrowed a lot of money from the bank, and don't have enough money to buy toys for their kids."

• Females are poorly represented in high-level Chinese politics – only one woman sits on the 25-member politburo, the party's central decision-making body, and none sit on the supreme nine-person committee at its core. Yet the People's Daily, a Communist party mouthpiece, has praised the congress's female showing. On Friday, the newspaper's English-language website ran a photo gallery with the caption: "Beautiful ritual girls, female reporters, and delegates to the party congress become beautiful scenery." Yes, beautiful scenery. The unabashedly sexist gallery even features a familiar face: on slide seven is none other than the Chinese-speaking Australian reporter.